


Keeping Warm

by mosylu



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: 6x17 episode reaction, F/M, aka the extended killervibe version of that ep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 01:41:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29445729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosylu/pseuds/mosylu
Summary: Pfffft. Like Cisco's going to go swanning off home when he found Caitlin unconscious and icing over on her couch. Think again.
Relationships: Cisco Ramon/Caitlin Snow
Kudos: 19





	Keeping Warm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MoonlightShines (Thatkillervibe)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thatkillervibe/gifts).



> Written for MoonlightShines for the prompt: “I’m not sure you understand how much I care about you.”

Ralph left after they got Caitlin stable - which in this case, meant they’d gotten her up to a temperature above freezing and she wasn’t spilling off mist like a cooler full of dry ice. He was reluctant to go, but she shooed him out. “I’m doing much better and I’m sure you have things to do.”

When she tried to shoo him along after Ralph, Cisco crossed his arms and said, “Nuh-uh, I’m parked here, young lady.”

She knew that look. She gave up.

But she out-stubborned him on the topic of maybe going to a hospital, or at least urgent care. “They wouldn’t know what to do if my cold powers took over again,” she said, “and they might contract frostbite trying to treat me.”

Cisco had his mouth open, ready to offer up a quick breach to Star Labs, before he remembered he didn’t do that anymore.

He retrieved throw pillows from the floor instead, tucking them behind her so she could sit up on the couch and drink clear broth out of a coffee mug. There was still a zone of cold around her, but no worse than sticking your hand in a refrigerator.

Against his will, he pictured her as she had been when he and Ralph had burst in: lips blue, fingers bone-white, mist spilling out around her, even the blanket frosted over. And her plaintive voice - _help me_.

He shuddered.

“Real talk,” he said. “You think this is going to hold?”

“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “I hope so. At least until my mom gets back to me.”

She’d called her mom and left a message, clearly trying to strike a balance between asking for help and sounding like she didn’t really need it, not _really._ Ralph and Cisco had exchanged the looks of men who had experienced Caitlin’s mom in person.

Dr. T hadn’t called back yet.

He brought her another mug, this one piping hot, drowning a tea bag, with a thick layer of honey at the bottom. “Well, I’m here.”

She gave him a smile. “Thanks.” She considered her half-full mug of broth and traded it to him for the tea. “I’m just glad that your plan worked to bring my temperature back up.”

Cisco frowned down at the broth. He’d brought it to her less than ten minutes ago, fresh from the microwave, and it was stone cold. “You done with this?”

“Mhm,” she said, stirring the tea.

He took it back to the kitchen and dumped it out in the sink. As he was stashing it in the dishwasher, a yelp of surprise and distress came from the couch.

He whipped around. “Caitlin?”

“I froze it,” she said, staring into her tea. 

“You _froze_ it?”

She held the mug out to him and sure enough, the tea inside was frozen solid, the handle of the spoon sticking up straight, the string of the tea bag sadly flopping around the surface like ice fishing gone wrong. It was a wonder it hadn’t cracked the mug.

He picked up the thermometer and aimed it at her forehead again. 4 degrees, he saw, and his throat locked up for a second before he realized it had switched to Celsius. He hit the button, and it converted to Fahrenheit: 39. Still not great, but not freezing, either.

All he could think to ask was, “Need another blanket?”

“I think it was a flare,” she said, carefully setting the mug down on her end table. She held her hand out in front of her. “I’m not misting.”

Her fingers were shaking.

He went and got another blanket anyway, tossing it over her feet when she wouldn’t allow him to wrap it around her shoulders. He wanted to cuddle her for comfort, but she was worried that she’d freeze him next, and he wasn’t one-hundred-percent pooh-poohing that notion.

He texted Barry to bring him a set of dampener cuffs, and got a text back that their friend was in the middle of something. He said, _911 Caitlin needs them_ and got no reply.

“I’ll be okay,” Caitlin said. “He needs to conserve his speed and the cuffs would be a last resort anyway. It took me by surprise the first time, but I know the warning signs now and I can turn things over to Frost if it gets really bad. She thinks she can handle it better.”

Cisco sent out a group text asking for someone to bring him the cuffs, just in case, and stuck his phone back in his pocket. “Maybe you should call your mom again,” he suggested.

She shook her head, pulling the second blanket up over herself. “I’ve called her once. She’ll get back to me.”

“Call her again. Please.”

She looked away, and it might have been a really long-winded argument except that her phone rang at that moment. She grabbed it and informed him, “It’s her,” before answering. “Mom? Hi. Thanks for returning my call.”

Seriously. Who said that to their mom? What kind of mom made their kid feel like they had to say that?

He tried not to listen in, but the open layout of her front room made that pretty hard. He focused on washing dishes and figuring out how to thaw the frozen mug enough to dump the tea-block out. When that was done, he busied himself texting Kamilla that he wouldn’t be home tonight. 

“Okay,” Caitlin said. “Okay. Uh-huh. No, that’s all right. Yes. I’ll keep you informed. Okay. Bye, Mom.”

At the sound of her sigh, he put his own phone down. “What’d she say?”

“She’ll be here in a few days.”

“A few days!”

“It’s fine, I’ll stay home until then. I’ll take care of the wound and switch to Frost if I need, and if someone can bring by the cuffs, I can have those, too.”

“But - ”

“She has to get things in order at the office so she can take the time off.”

He stopped dead, mid-protest. He couldn’t think of the last time Mama Snow had ever taken time off work for her daughter. He was pretty sure that when Caitlin had been born, Carla Tannhauser had popped her out during a board meeting and stashed her in a file cabinet.

Caitlin looked up. “She’s very concerned.”

“Yeah.” He sat down on the coffee table, ignoring the way she hissed at him. She hated when he did that. “So she’s going to like, come here?” He pictured Mama Snow at Star Labs, snipping at all of them. “How long?”

“No, she - ” Caitlin cleared her throat. “She’d like to take me to the lab in the Arctic.”

“Hang on, Icicle’s cryotastic lair of chilly evil?”

“Don’t call it that, and yes.”

“You’re leaving?”

“I agree with her. We’ll need the specialized equipment there to figure out what’s going on, and maybe to stabilize it.”

“How long?”

“As long as it takes, I guess.”

How long would that be? “You want I should come with?”

“You just got back,” she said. “And no offense, this is really more of a biomedical issue than a mechanical one. If it turns out we need some kind of device built, I can always call you.”

“Yeah, you got my digits,” he mumbled. “So what’ll you do until then?”

“The wound did close up before my immune system went haywire,” she said. “So now it’s a matter of taking it easy. The antibiotics should start to work, and I’m taking in lots of fluids. I’m not concerned about that part, it seems like it’s just a matter of time.”

She was the doctor. He nodded. “Okay. But I’m staying here tonight to look after you.”

“You don’t have to do that!”

“Yeah, I know, I want to.”

“What if I freeze you?”

He grinned at her. “Baby, I’m too hot to ever get that cold.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Seriously. You don’t have to stay.”

He squatted down next to the couch, as close as she would allow him to get. “Caitlin,” he said, looking her in the eye. “I’m not sure you understand how much I care about you.”

“I know you care about me.”

“But you still think I’m going to see you in this condition and go swanning off back home.”

She chewed her bottom lip. “What does Kamilla think?”

The rebuttal should have come easy. _She’s fine with it. You’re my friend, you need help._ It wouldn’t be the first time he’d put in overtime to help a friend. It was one of the things Kamilla said she liked about him.

But for some reason he couldn’t get the words out. “She understands,” he said. “I filled her in. She says get well soon.”

_She doesn’t have any reason to be jealous,_ he thought, and then immediately thought, _Jealous? Why did that even cross my mind?_

Caitlin studied him, and he tried not to squirm. 

“Anyway,” he added. “We should get in some concentrated bestie time, since I was on the road and you’re going to be off in the Arctic. Hmm?” He looked around and found her remote. “Here, I’ll even let you pick the first movie.”

“Oh, really,” she said archly.

“Yes, really, here.”

She took the remote with a pleased hum. “I should get injured more often.”

“Umm, hard no on that.”

* * *

By the time they’d finished “Always Be My Maybe” and “The Old Guard,” she’d downed some egg flower soup and a mug of tea without flash-freezing either, and taken some antibiotics as well. The cuffs had arrived too, courtesy of Allegra, who’d stayed long enough to eat three egg rolls and watch the end of Caitlin’s rom-com. 

When Cisco finished cleaning up the Chinese delivery boxes, she was snuggled into her pillows, eyes closed.

“Hey,” he whispered. “You awake there?”

She snored a little. He snickered.

He considered her couch. He’d had occasion to sleep on it before, and he knew it was decently comfy. But she would probably prefer her bed. 

On the other hand, she was asleep now, and she clearly needed the downtime. He didn’t want to wake her all the way up just to steer her into her bedroom a few feet away. Especially if it would break open her wound again, or her suddenly-uncertain powers were under shakier control in her sleep.

He decided to leave her where she was and claim the futon in her study. He knew where all her extra blankets and pillows were. 

He held his hand a few inches away from her cheek, testing. When it failed to freeze over, he pulled the extra blanket up over her, then leaned down and kissed her forehead. Her skin was unsettlingly cool under his lips, and he paused until he saw her chest rise and fall. Then he brushed her hair back and murmured, “Sleep tight, frosty girl. I’ll be right here if you need me.”

FINIS


End file.
